sanctuarium
by Rapis-Razuri
Summary: "May I stay here with you?" [KHIII. Naminé/Roxas. KHIII Spoilers.]


Happy RokuNami Day 2019.

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Some things didn't break easily, like the bonds that connected his heart to Sora's. Roxas was whole now, finally his own person, but it didn't change the fact that his connection to Sora was something that was meant to stay.

Because… there was no other explanation for this sudden influx of _raw agony_ he was feeling right this very moment. He should not be finding it difficult to breathe. He should not be feeling as though he was being torn in two_, _not while he was still riding the high of finally finding his friends again.

Xion felt it too, he could see it in her face. Her eyes were brimming with tears again as she clasped her hands over her mouth. "Sora," she whispered. "Oh no, _Sora..._ What happened to him_?_"

On the cusp of tears himself, Roxas didn't trust himself to say anything, but he couldn't bear to stand there and do _nothing_ either. He simply started running down the path forward. Behind him, Xion was right on his heels as Axel called after them both. In front if him, he knew only the twisted corridors of the labyrinth and that somewhere up ahead, Sora was hurting.

But, as suddenly as the hurt that prompted it all, Roxas took a step forward that swept him away from the Keyblade Graveyard and into the Station of Awakening.

He wanted to scream. _Why?! Why now? _

The links and tassels on his coat clinked against each other as he turned around in a circle. The Station was the same as always, as dark as the bottom of the sea and illuminated by the glass pillars rising from the depths, but there was one thing that was different: the platform on which he stood deciphered a visage of himself sleeping on the stained glass surface rather than Sora, although he still had a presence there. There were others too. Axel and Xion, of course. A little more surprising, but no less welcome to see was-

"Naminé?"

The girl in white had been flickering in and out of sight like a mirage in his peripheral vision, but as soon as he spoke her name, her image stilled and stabilized across from him. She was translucent, little more than a ghost, and yet she shone like a beacon in this place that blurred the border between death and sleep.

She did not answer when he called her name and merely gazed at him with the empty stare of someone who had just lost something vital.

"Naminé!" Roxas took a few steps forward before he even realized what his body was doing. "Is that really you?"

His hand passed through hers when he tried to reach out to her. Where their fingers should have intertwined broke into a ripple, causing her hand and fingers to disseminate into glowing motes of light. Naminé smiled, but it was bitter and laced with pain.

Roxas lowered his arm. Her hand became concentrated again as he stared down at his.

Looking up into her eyes, he tried again. "Naminé?"

"It's really me," she confirmed, closing and opened her fingers as she gazed at her palms. "Or rather, my heart. I think the only reason why I'm able to appear as I do here is because we're in your's."

"You see yourself the way I remember you," Roxas realized.

"Yes. That would appear to be the case."

Unable to stop himself, he smiled softly. "I missed you."

"I know." Something familiar sparked in her haunted eyes. "Sora told me, but it's different, hearing it directly from you." Her smile became a little more real. "I missed you too, Roxas."

As always, Naminé could make his heart flutter in the oddest of ways. If this was what it was like to have a heart… he certainly had one the whole time.

There were many things he wanted to talk to her about, but he knew this wasn't the time. Whatever was going on back in the Keyblade Graveyard was still happening and he didn't know how long he could afford to delay. "Um…" he stammered, "Don't take this the wrong way, but why are you here? Did… did something happen?"

Her expression blanked for a moment before she spoke a single word in a voice soaked with unshed tears. "Kairi."

_Everything_ fell into place. Roxas clenched his fists, silently cursing Xemnas to the depths of the Abyss where he belonged.

"Xehanort needed the last piece of the χ-blade. He needed to feed Sora's anger. For that end, he struck Kairi down," she explained, level and neutral and detached. No emotion colored those statements, only fact. "I don't know why or how, but Xehanort released me from Kairi's heart when he did. And instead of going back to the Final World like last time, I ended up…" Her voice cracked again.

Roxas found his anger cooling. There was a time and place for anger, but not here and not now.

"I ended up..."

"Here," Roxas finished for her, gesturing to his chest.

She nodded. "I didn't have a body to go back to. Or anywhere, really, now that Kairi is gone."

"But you will." He wanted to tell her something that could cheer her, no matter how little. No matter how pointless it seemed in the wake of Kairi's death. "Vexen made replica bodies for me and Xion. He can make one for you too."

"Would he?"

"He has to," Roxas insisted, even though the cynic in him couldn't blame her for her skepticism. "I'll make sure of it."

For a small, wondrous moment, hope flared in her eyes, but it vanished again just as quickly, snuffed out by Naminé herself. Roxas couldn't put his finger on why that bothered him.

"But in the meantime, I…" She took a deep breath and held her hands up to her chest. "Is it alright if I asked you for a favor?"

Roxas had a good idea what that favor was going to be, but he gently prompted her all the same. "What is it?"

"May I stay here with you?" The earnest vulnerability she was displaying now saddened him. It was like watching flower close up after it bloomed. She was so unsure of herself, of everything, a contrast to the bravery and liveliness Roxas _knew_ she was capable of. "I don't know how long it'll be or how this will affect you in the long run, so… I will understand if you would rather not."

"Of course you may stay here," he responded almost instantly. Quiet, but certain. _But… _"But why me?"

She tilted her head to the side, confused. "What do you mean?"

"Why seek _my_ heart out for this," Roxas clarified. This wasn't the sort of question that would gnaw away at him until it was answered, but he wanted to know all the same. Surely if Naminé had been set free when Kairi was struck down as she described, it meant Sora had been _right there?_ "Why not Sora?"

Naminé closed her eyes as though resigning herself to what she was about to confess. "Because _you_ are the person I wanted to see more than anyone," she replied without a trace of deceit. "Not Sora. _You_."

"I am?"

"Yes." She looked downwards, as though shamed by her own wants. "I know. It's very selfish of me isn't it?"

"I don't think so," Roxas rebutted. "If it's selfish for wanting to see the people who matter to you, then I'm just as guilty as you are."

She could only blink, but the gratitude was there all the same.

What he did not say was how much it touched him to know that he had been her first choice when she needed someone. Maybe she had doubts about his willingness to harbor her, but instinct told him those doubts had nothing to do with him personally. And in the end, she had chosen to trust him despite that anyway.

His light was but a fraction of Kairi's. He hoped it would be enough to keep her Nobody from fading into darkness and he hoped Naminé was right to put her trust in him for such a task. "If our positions were reversed, you'd do the same for me, right?"

"Right," she agreed, lifting her head again and looking rather happy that they could agree on that point. "There's… still a lot of things I want to talk to you about. And things I need to tell you, but I've kept you long enough, haven't I? You still have a duty to fulfill in the real world."

"I guess I still do," Roxas concurred. How much time had passed in the Keyblade Graveyard? Did he just… _disappear_ from there when he entered the Station, leaving Axel and Xion to wonder what happened to him?

Right. Axel and Xion… He was going to have to tell them _something_ about this wasn't he? Telling them what happened to Kairi was going to be the hard part. Hard, but necessary. Roxas knew his friends wouldn't take it well, but the last thing Sora needed to see was _their_ heartbroken reactions when they would inevitably found out.

But the subject of Naminé… It felt like less of a necessity and more like something between just the two of them. It was too personal to share with a third party, even if that third party were his best friends.

As though she read his mind, Naminé spoke up again. "When you go back to the real world, you can tell your friends about me… being where I am. Secrets tore the three of you apart once. I don't want to see it happen again, especially not on my account."

Her words brought back harsh memories, reminding him that beneath the joy there were still things the three of them needed to sort out and talk over once everything was over. But she was right in the painfully honest way that was so very _Naminé._

The last thing he wanted to do now was repeat the mistakes of the past, but matters like Naminé's reasons for seeking shelter with him were not his secrets to tell. Surely there was a way to inform his friends while respecting her privacy.

_Just the facts then. Simple enough, right?_

Coming to this decision, he asked, "Any other messages you would like me to pass along?"

Her hesitant silence was telling. "There is a chance that Kairi would be alright," Naminé said quietly. "It's a _very_ small chance, but Sora still needs to know. Someone like him isn't meant to fight from a position of despair."

_That's fair,_ Roxas thought, uncomfortably aware of the recklessness he was capable of when believing he had nothing left to lose. "Do _you_ think Kairi would be alright though?"

Naminé hesitated again, but he watched her uncertainty settle. "If anyone could be after that… It'll be Kairi." She made a resolute nod, as if deciding she agreed with her statement after all. "Her heart is stronger than Xehanort thinks. He's always underestimated the light."

Roxas found himself awash in a kind of admiration he wasn't used to feeling. Naminé was clearly shaken by a trauma fresh in her memory, but she still managed to keep a remarkably cool head in the aftermath, even finding the means to comfort someone else who witnessed the same tragedy.

"Then believe in her," Roxas encouraged. _Don't lose faith in Kairi when she still needs you to make up the difference._ "And my friends and I will do what we can for Sora. I won't let him lose hope again."

He folded her arms behind her. "He's lucky to have you watching his back."

Roxas shrugged, a casual gesture that downplayed what he was really feeling. "He makes a good other," he said simply. "You can rest easy, I won't let you down."

"I know you won't. Because you always do what your heart feels is right. I trust you, Roxas." Naminé closed her eyes and sighed. "I guess there's nothing else I can do at this point."

That sounded rather like a finality.

"I still want us to be together," Roxas found himself blurting out the one thing he couldn't leave for later. He hadn't realized how much he still wanted it until he allowed himself to voice it. "Do you?"

She startled at that, but quickly softened. "I want that more than anything, Roxas."

Then maybe this parting would be their last. Roxas held out his hand to her as Kairi once did and Naminé took a step forward and took it.

Had her body been solid, their fingers would have brushed against each other as they sealed this covenant. Instead, the moment Naminé squeezed, light upon leather, her hand burst into light, an effect that rippled up her arm as she began to dissolve into millions of particles of light.

Her smile, one that was finally able to reach her sad eyes, was the last thing he saw of her before she became a spherical flare he cradled between his palms.

"I may… have to sleep again." Her words echoed, but they sounded content. "But I'll be right here. In your heart."

With a small nod, Roxas guided her heart towards his own. She faded into him and his body tingled, feeling warmer than ever. He kept his hands there and closed his eyes.

"Sweet dreams, Naminé," he whispered. "I'll keep you safe."

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Credit to Hadai for coming up with the "I still want us to be together. Do you?" line. I modified it somewhat to fit, but she thought of it first :)


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